Butsugen butsumo　仏眼仏母

KEY WORD :　art hisotry / iconography

Also Butsugenson 仏眼尊 (Venerable Buddha-Eye). Lit. Buddha-Eye, or Mother of the Buddha. Sk: Buddhalocanal Locana. An Esoteric Buddhist goddess personifying the Buddha's discerning vision, and more specifically, as the division mother, bumo 部母, of the Buddha division or family, one of the three groups and later five groups into which deities were classified in Esoteric Buddhism mikkyou 密教. She appears in the *Taizoukai mandara 胎蔵界曼荼羅 in the Henchi-in 遍知院 (seated in a meditative pose with her hands forming the *hokkai jouin 法界定印 mudra) and in the Shaka-in 釈迦院 (with the left hand holding a lotus surmounted by a jewel) and the right hand raised in the manner of the mudra for bestowing fearlessness *semui-in 施無畏印. In the former case she is also called Kokuugen 虚空眼 (Empty-Space Eye, Sk: Gaganalocana) and in the latter case Henchigen 遍知眼 (Omniscient Eye), Noujakumo 能寂母 (Shaka's Mother) or Issai nyoraihou 一切如来宝 (Jewel of all the Tathagatas, Sk: Sarvatathagatamani). In a well-known pictorial representation of her, which is kept at Kouzanji 高山寺 in Kyoto and which is based on the YUGIKYOU 瑜祇経 (Taishou No. 867), she is shown white in color, clothed in white robes, seated on a white lotus, and wearing a crown with a lion's head. She also appears at the center of the *Butsugen mandara 仏眼曼荼羅 and in the *Ichijikinrin mandara 一字金輪曼荼羅.

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